Hello friends! Man, I can’t believe this is the last week of September. I love summer, but I have to say I am SO excited for Fall!! This month has brought so much joy. I am absolutely loving married life and getting acclimated to living in Wisconsin. We finally have pictures on the walls! It’s starting to feel like home already <3 We love entertaining so it was exciting having some of our best friends from college visit us and explore Sheboygan. The Labor Day holiday was spent on a girl’s weekend getaway to New York City with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. It was fun spending time with them and getting a taste of real city life, despite the rain! Last week I drove to Iowa to visit my best friend and her husband and finally got to meet their newborn, beautiful baby girl, Adalynn. On top of that we drove to Illinois to celebrate my nephew’s 5th birthday. Check out that awesome cake -- my brother-in-law is so talented! I even got to enjoy the apple orchard with Nick and my mom (told you I'm excited for fall!). I’m so happy I could be present for all of these events. There was so much love and happiness felt this month; and gratitude. I am so grateful for my job that I can do what I love and still be able to see my family and friends. I can’t express how much I appreciate all of your support and encouragement!!

As much joy as this month has brought, it’s also been tough. I have never been shy or afraid to meet new people, but this month it’s been a little tough for me to get out of my shell. BUT, instead of dwelling and being sad about being in a new place and not knowing anyone (I did that for the first few weeks, not going to lie…) I went out and did something about it. I joined a gym and reached out to friends of friends and started to just put myself out there. It’s scary and I feel vulnerable (even just writing this), but isolating ourselves doesn’t give us a chance at all. We need to put ourselves in positions where we can grow and do something about it!! I've met some really awesome people in the process and I can't wait to see how these friendships grow. A while ago I put myself in a position where I knew I’d be able to meet people and grow in addition to the gym. I joined the team at The Container Store in Wauwatosa. It was a dream come true. I love the products at The Container Store, the principles the business was built upon, and the people I worked with. I have never worked somewhere that people were that excited to come to work and do their jobs (and do them well I might add). That’s why it was a tough decision to put in my two weeks’ notice at the beginning of the month. I learned so much and I appreciate all the training and support they gave me, but in the end, I needed to do what was best for me and my family and Optimal Organization. TCS – you’ll always have a special place in my heart! I have to give a shout out to Kelly and Andra who started With Grace and Gold. I first heard their story from the She Did It Her Way podcast earlier this year. They started their business three years ago and it’s been fun to see how they’ve grown. They hosted a webinar this month that I was super excited to be a part of! 6 Systems to 6 Figures was an hour webinar where they shared how implementing systems into their business has led to success. I am a huge believer in systems and efficiency as an Industrial Engineer and I loved what they had to say. So much that I signed up for their Profiting from Productivity course. Can’t wait to learn!! So much learning happening in the next month with the WG&G course AND the She Did it Her Way summit in Chicago!!

It’s been six months since I made the decision to whole heartedly give my business 110%, full time. As much as I can do on my own, I can only get so far. Never stop learning from those around you!! I am so excited to cultivate relationships and learn! ​

Happy Tuesday, all! Back in June I touched on the term “Get Organized” and what that entailed of. In case you missed it, you can find it here. For a quick recap, my method consists of three parts – the trifecta – to “Getting Organized”.

Physical Organization – this is where a lot of the other blog posts touch on and how the #GoodFindFriday’s can be used

Mental Organization

Schedule organization

Today I want to expand more on the idea of being mentally organized. Lacking mental organization is the culprit to us not achieving the physical organization of our possessions. There are two main obstacles that keep us from being mentally organized; emotions and shame.

Happy Tuesday, friends 😊 Today we’re talking about how to organize your linens. I don’t know about you, but I live in an apartment and don’t have room for a “Monica” level of linens (11 categories…check out “Friends” Season 4 episode 12. You won’t regret it.). In a linen closet you should really only have two main categories: 1) Sheets 2) Towels

Towels:​Typically, there are bath towels, hand towels, washcloths and rags. I am all about matching sets. Keeping a set together (2 bath towels, 2 hand towels and 2 wash cloths) is going to be key. Ideally you should have 2 sets/bathroom. This allows for one to be out/in the bathroom while the other is being washed. For guests, it’s a little different and you can look that up in a previous blog, Guest Bedroom Organization.

If you have others out of the set think to yourself, do you ever have them out? Are they useful or have they been sitting in this closet for a long time? Would they serve a better purpose as a rag? If the answer is yes, they are utilized, set them aside. If the answer is no, they’d be better utilized as a rag, put them in the rag bin. If they have rips or stains, I’m here to tell you they are now a rag.

Sheets:Again, the Guest Bedroom Organization Blog has some good tips on this, but for the rest of the rooms, I suggest having two sets of sheets per bed. Same concept as the towels, that when one is being washed the other is on the bed. No more stalling bed time because your sheets are in the dryer! If you live some place with cold winters like me, having a third set of flannel sheets will be nice!!

​Before:

​As you can see everything was out in the open and exposed. With the dirty clothes underneath, the sheets and towels could absorb the smells – yuck! Since everything was out in the open, no matter how neatly I folded things and placed them nicely on the shelves, everything still looked messy. It was driving me crazy!!

So now we have all the things we need sorted and have donated the rest, now what?

After:I got four cloth pouches, normally meant for sweaters, at the Container Store. One of the employees gave me the idea (thanks Janelle!) to put one set of sheets in each pouch. This keeps them clean and smelling fresh. It also makes changing the sheets a lot smoother when you can just pull a pouch from the shelf and not have to think if you have the fitted sheet, flat sheet and pillow cases! I always seem to grab either two fitted sheets or two flat sheets; anyone else?! From there I got four bins. Two were large -- one for the master bed’s sheets and one for the guest bedroom’s. They are different size beds, so no more grabbing the queen sheets when I’m changing the full bed’s sheets and vice versa! The third is a medium size bin and I put the extra duvet cover and shams in there. The last bin, a small size is for extra pillow cases. We have lots of pillows…

For towels, I bought a start-a-stack Elfa drawer unit from the container store. The bottom drawer is for all our rags. Both middle drawers holds one set of towels. The top single drawer holds the extra hand towels that are not part of a set, but we wanted to keep.

Last but not least, labels!!

​ All the steps alone sound simple, but you can see the difference that sorting and labeling makes. Start today by, 1) evaluating what you have 2) sort into what you need, what you can donate, and what needs to now be considered as a rag 😉. Then get the bins, and tailor them to your style. I was going for a clean sleek look, so I knew I didn’t want the bins to be clear. What is our style? Clear? Plastic? Wicker? Linen finish? Handles/no handles? Make it your own!

Try it out and share your experiences with me! Have any other tips that I didn’t touch on? Comment below! I’d love to hear it! 😊 As always, Happy Organizing!!

If you know me, you know I'm all for any kind of list, but I've learned to not judge myself based on said list. My to-do list organizes all my jumbled thoughts and brings clarity to my mind and my day, but I find myself upset when I don't get everything crossed off. I was overlooking the fact that the things I did get crossed off were the two most time consuming things!! The best pieces of advice for to-do lists are:

Make your to-do list in the morning. I heard this one from Tonya Dalton at inkWell Press. Each day is different. Some days you feel like you're going to conquer the world and the next, you're lucky if you get through all your emails. By making your list in the morning, your list will reflect what your energy level for that day.

Start with three things on your to-do list that are non-negotiables. If you get these three things done, it will be a productive day. For me, some days this is writing a blog post, planning out next week's social media content, and some days it'd doing the dishes and putting in a load of laundry. Again, each day is different! Embrace it. Have two items on your "If you're feeling extra productive today" list. These are items that if you get everything else done and you feel like you can tackle more, fantastic! If not, they're not time sensitive so that's fantastic too!

That being said, it's wonderful if you get more done than you thought you would in a day, but be cautious to not over work. Being overly productive one day can wear you out faster and make the next day the complete opposite.

I like paper to-do lists and cross off as I go. If your day is very appointment/time oriented, I suggest making a master list and setting time stamps and reminders on your phone.

These are four, simple to-do list tips, and I hope they bring just a tad more productivity to your day! :)

Author

Emily has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Iowa State University. There she learned how valuable organization can be in being productive. She chose to use this knowledge and help others achieve this productivity and optimization in their homes and small businesses. Read & Enjoy and as always, let us know if you have any questions!